my grad-student kitchen may be stocked with tools like “i got this for my birthday” or “someone was giving this away” or “my god-given two hands,” but in my dreams and my cart on williams-sonoma‘s website, my kitchen is stocked with all sorts of high-tech, amazing gadgets.

personal favorite tools include:

the pancake pen: a nifty gadget with which you can be totally precise in your application of batter. the grad-student equivalent? an old condiment bottle that’s been rinsed out. granted, it probably works just as well (provided you’ve cleaned out all that old mustard) but you can see why i find the pancake pen so alluring.

a mesh sugar shaker: imagine how much more pristine your powdered sugar application would be with a mesh sugar shaker? pancakes, zeppoles, hot chocolate– all topped with soft, alpine-esque sprinkles of confectioners sugar! right now i take a pinch of sugar between my fingers to lightly powder my baked goods, and it works, i guess. let me dream.

the tapered rolling pin: in a perfect world, i wouldn’t be using a sampling glass from the harpoon brewery here in boston as my rolling pin. i wouldn’t be shaping wafer-thin pirouette cookies around the handle of a wooden spoon. instead, i’d be using this rock maple rolling pin to work culinary magic. sigh.

you can see why i’m addicted to this store. i may or may not check store directories in every mall i enter, just to see if i can go gaze longingly at williams-sonoma bakeware i can’t afford and don’t really need or have room for, but that i’d love as if it were my firstborn child.